Confrontations
by sirona7
Summary: Jack is forced to confront some truths he would rather remain in the shadows.


Title: Confrontations   
  
Author: sirona7  
  
Email: lclos@aol.com  
  
URLs: Posted at www.nocturnalactivities.net  
  
Keywords: Vignette, Missing Scene, Jack POV, Jack/Dr. Barnett, OC  
  
Timeline: S1, Rendezvous  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: Jack is forced to confront some truths he would rather remain in the shadows.  
  
Author's Note: Thanks to Maisfeeka for the suggestion of two versions of Jack's journal and to akatolstoy for the darkness in Dr. Barnett. "Rendezvous" was written by the inspiring team of Erica Messer and Debra J. Fisher.   
  
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters belong to J.J. Abrams and ABC. I own nothing and will not profit from the story.   
  
*******  
  
Part I, First   
  
After detailing the mission specs for Paris, Jack left Will Tippin under the overpass, slouching against the side of his Jeep, looking less and less like a crusading reporter, more and more like a gutshot golden retriever. "Clearly he needs time alone to process our transaction," Jack concluded.  
  
Admittedly, it had been quite a shock for Tippin, this abrupt entry into the shadow world of intelligence. There would be much to learn and quickly, but, ready or not, the success of the upcoming mission rested squarely on his shoulders.   
  
"I'd almost forgotten how overwhelming it is...when it's all new." However, Jack had a sense that there was metal in the boy and that the mission would work, though not, he imagined, in the manner he strategized. "Tippin will do fine," he averred, allowing himself to smile. "If this one is brought in, his handler will have a real hand full. Better though to keep far away from that business, it would...complicate...interactions with Sydney."   
  
Weaving the Town Car swiftly through heavy traffic, Jack contemplated the dangerous liaisons in which he was engaged. Here he was, directing and costuming amateurs to play sensitive roles in a deftly plotted, potentially lethal, farce. Using Will Tippin to bait the trap was only one absurdity in a play full of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations without any idea of the genuine risks or reasons.   
  
"If the situation weren't so damned desperate it might be funny, worthy perhaps of Moliere's touch," he surmised. At least Tippin stood a good chance of surviving this operation. And, the operation stood a good chance of succeeding. Once the identity of the informant was uncovered, Jack could strategize with increased confidence. Ideally, it would reveal whomever it was that wanted to expose Sydney, bringing him close enough to solve the problem permanently.   
  
The more personally tricky waters to navigate were the ones he was just now entering: an appointment with Dr. Barnett. She'd made it clear that he was to bring the journal, a daily record of his thoughts, dreams, and fears. And his response had been classic Bristow: he had created a bluff version of the journal to give to the doctor while keeping his real thoughts safely encrypted on the hard drive of his Titanium iBook.   
  
"Ironic really. The journal has actually born some helpful associations. Too bad Dr. Barnett will never know."   
  
He parked in the underground garage and quickly took stock of his appearance. It was obvious that he wasn't getting enough rest. His eyes were glassy and no amount of eye drops would alter that effect. When he could sleep, he'd been grinding his teeth with such vigor that his gums were bleeding. He hated the taste of copper in his mouth. During the rest of the day, the muscles of his face ached from the strain of keeping his expression neutral.   
  
And so he'd prepared for this meeting with unusual attention to the details of his dress. Using sleight-of-hand, he intended to distract Dr. Barnett with an overall impression of control. Mrs. Zhang, his exceptional housekeeper, on whose exacting standards he depended for the efficient maintenance of the illusions of his cover stories (now as strategic analyst at Credit Dauphine), had suggested the charcoal grey Ferre suit, single-breasted worsted wool, 3 outer pockets, 2 vents; elegant fit and cut.   
  
"Ferre makes excellent impression," she offered with approval when they discussed his wardrobe on the occasion of another, important meeting. "Traditional but best quality." Adding after a pause, "It says strong and very serious."   
  
"And that would be just the image we're looking for today." He thought as he chose a crisply starched and pressed white cotton shirt, tailored to taper from his broad shoulders, gracefully accented with short French cuffs, fastened with plain platinum studs.   
  
In a final nod to authority, he wore the old school tie; double-woven silk in Harvard crimson, interwoven with tiny gold shields. It was important for Dr. Barnett to see that he was not hiding from the past, that he could remember those days, that he was in command of the truth.   
  
Looking in the mirror, Jack was pleased with the effect. But, as he prepared to leave the safety of the Town Car, he couldn't help but think with regret,"Whatever I am now, I am certainly not that boy who was inspired just by the thought of 'veritas'."   
  
In a few minutes, he arrived at her door. "Every instinct for survival tells me I should be laying it all out...dare I say...the truth...this whole pathetic...illusion I call life...about Laura...about the vertigo...the all of it...who knows...maybe Dr. Barnett could...what...help?...is that even possible?...I know something brought me to her that day...Some instinct for survival...What was that quote?...'God loves to help him who strives to help himself.'...Was it Aeschylus?...Does have the feel of the Minotaur's labyrinth..." Smiling in spite of himself, he straightened his tie and set his expression to bland. "No matter, it's not an option. Too much rides on holding the line." Taking a deep breath, he sighed. "Bring up the curtain."   
  
*******   
  
Part II, Last   
  
Knocking three sharp raps on the door, he waited for a response. Five seconds is along time when you are waiting for a response, none came. He knocked again, still no response.   
  
He checked his watch. "Dammit, I know it was 1:30."   
  
He placed his hand on the knob at the precise moment the door pulled open. Jack found himself lunging slightly forward right into Dr. Barnett. He didn't like to brush too close to others.   
  
Pulling back and mumbling an apology, "I'm sorry, I didn't want to...I hope I didn't hurt you."   
  
"Come in Jack, no, I'm sorry to make you wait," she said, standing aside to let him enter the room. She'd moved the furniture so that the desk was now in front of the window.   
  
He found this mildly disconcerting. Somehow the room seemed smaller.   
  
He studied her surreptitiously. She was a handsome woman and she seemed to dress with this in mind. Today, she was wearing a well-fitting black suit, a tailored jacket and a short skirt, with a pale blue colored shell. He noticed her face looked fleetingly agitated. Maybe it was the effect of the eye make-up. Perhaps to conceal the circles under her eyes. She looked depleted, a marathon runner after 21 miles, like something was draining away from her steadily.   
  
"Do sit down. I've just been catching up on some paperwork." She slid the folder off to the side of the desk and placed a black mat over the surface. When she was set, she paused a moment and looked at him, her head slightly cocked to the side.   
  
"You look...different...somehow." Now openly appraising him, she brushed over the carefully staged costuming and focused on his haggard eyes. "Has something happened?"   
  
This was not going as planned. "No, nothing out of the ordinary. I appreciate you making the change to my appointment time," he said briskly.   
  
"No problem, I understand how complicated your schedule must be. Have you had time to work on the journal?"   
  
Setting his jaw firmly, "About the journal, there are a few concerns."   
  
"Okaaay."   
  
"What precautions are in place to protect confidentiality?"   
  
"I keep my records in locked cabinets when I'm not working on them. This is a secure office in a secure facility. Access to these files are strictly need-to-know from Mr. Devlin up," she murmured, keeping her tone of voice low and even as she sat perched at the chair's edge.   
  
He chose his next words with care. "You seem to have an overly simplified notion of security in the building."   
  
She returned a steady professional smile. "There's no need to be insulting."   
  
"No offense intended. You concede that others have access to your records. So, it's really only a matter of under what circumstances. The confidentiality can be compromised?"   
  
"I'd hardly use the word 'compromised.' But, yes, accessed. Let's make this transparent, our employers have us sign away the most basic right of all, privacy, when we come to work for the CIA."   
  
Jack nodded. "In a further irony, we agree to subject each other to a remarkable degree of scrutiny in the name of vigilance."   
  
"And this doesn't even touch on the oath I took to my profession," Dr. Barnett countered. "There are constraints on the confidentiality of my files like there are on any practitioner. It's the nature of the field."   
  
"All fine and good, Dr. Barnett, but hardly compelling evidence for one to speak openly, and, I might add, not exactly confidence building in general." Jack allowed himself a tiny moment of satisfaction. He'd scored.   
  
She fixed him with a steady gaze, not backing down from the engagement. "I get the sense we're not just talking about the journal. Am I right?"   
  
He sat up straight in the chair and looked back into her eyes without blinking. "Affirmative."   
  
Dr. Barnett lowered her eyes and sat still, one finger pressing against her lip in an unconscious gesture, gathering her thoughts. Then she looked up with sincere concern. "What's it gonna take, Jack?" she asked slipping into an accent that sounded vaguely like the north New Jersey shore.   
  
"I don't know what you mean," he said calmly.   
  
"I'm going to lay out my hand for you. Here goes: I imagine you've checked me out pretty thoroughly. You're here, so I must have passed at least some basic test of credibility. Because of the realities of your situation, you need to test me at every turn. I get that. But, you watch every move I make to the degree that I feel something like a wildebeest staring down a lion." She paused to catch his eye, then went on. "How can I prove to you it's worth the risk to begin our work in earnest?" She seemed to be shaking, her thin shoulders arced, as if they carried wings ready to take flight.   
  
Jack was nonplussed by the directness of the question. "Is that a rhetorical question?"   
  
"No, it's a honest, if unorthodox, offer." Dr. Barnett moved back in the seat until her long slender frame was pushed tightly to the back of the chair. Jack noticed a slight tremor in her lower lip. They sat in silence, looking into each others faces; the only sounds, the lively ticking of an Art Deco clock on the bookshelf, and the muffled noise of people moving outside the heavy steel door.   
  
Dr. Barnett shifted forward in her chair, finally breaking the silence. "Do you want to know what mandate I have regarding you?"   
  
Swallowing hard, Jack replied, "Are you referring to me specifically or is this a discussion of security levels?"   
  
"I mean you personally, directly from Mr. Devlin."   
  
Jack pushed up in his chair and squared his shoulders. "It might be helpful to know. Yes." Narrowing his gaze, "But not if it jeopardizes your position. That wouldn't serve either of us in the end."   
  
She nodded in appreciation of his tacit acknowledgment of their shared risks, and allowed her breath to release in an audible rush, as she said, "When your therapy was given official sanction, Mr. Devlin told me that he'd made this move because of your daughter. After the revelations about her mother, Sydney became concerned for you. She sees the damage, Jack. She knows at least some history from Arvin Sloane."   
  
Jack focused so intently on Dr. Barnett's black rimmed eyes that he felt transfixed.   
  
"I'm not in the habit of sharing diagnoses with patients, but I think we're at a stalemate unless we can establish some...trust...between us." She stared hard into his blank face. Was she searching for a weakness, he wondered, as she continued, "We can begin with the premise that your...substance abuse...may in fact be a coping mechanism. It's warped and ultimately dysfunctional but a coping mechanism nonetheless. Combined with other behaviors, in particular your erratic violent behavior, well, it reveals something to the practiced observer."   
  
This information brought Jack back to the moment. "So much for concealing," he reflected. He couldn't be sure if this was a positive development or not, but it was certainly unexpected. The doctor didn't seem to have many shortcomings where tactics were concerned.   
  
"Despite your elegant demeanor this morning, my preliminary diagnosis would still be post-traumatic stress disorder, duration some 20 years, perhaps longer. This carries with it a v e r y guarded prognosis." She paused to let the words percolate. "There is also the distinct possibility of an underlying major depression." She paused again. "But, I don't imagine too much of this information is a surprise to you, is it, Jack?"   
  
A wry smile escaped his lips as he responded, "Not entirely unexpected."   
  
"I wouldn't think so. A man of your many gifts, a master of game theory and strategy, you have to know your weaknesses, so that the enemy can't exploit them, and thereby, create a shift in the power paradigm. Isn't that right?" Dr. Barnett had cocked her head to the side and allowed herself a wry smile in return.   
  
Jack did not like the turn of the conversation but he was sure that silence was the best defense at this point. He let his gaze move to the bookcase behind Dr. Barnett. There were huge books of professional interest intermixed with thin, leather-bound volumes, many of which were marked with yellow tags.   
  
Dr. Barnett followed his eyes to the bookshelf as she resumed, "Now, Mr. Devlin has authorized the so-called 'maximum confidentiality mandate' which gives me the widest leverage for treatment while maintaining the 'spirit' of the security needs of the Agency. I remember what he said: 'The agency bears much of the blame for this mess. If there's any way to save this man from self-destruction, any way at all, no matter what, do it.'"   
  
Jack tried to rally an answer and take back the momentum, "It's hardly surprising that Sydney would be alarmed. She's young. She hasn't really been...exposed...to...this situation. It's all so new to her." Feeling unexpectedly angry, he eyed her contemptuously. "So, am I to take it that Mr. Devlin 'feels my pain'?"   
  
She didn't take the bait, "You've misinterpreted the context of his remarks. I think Mr. Devlin hearkens back to Shelley more than to Bill Clinton."   
  
Jack's memory of Shelley was rusty and inseparable from memories of Laura. She'd had a love/hate relationship with the Romantics but enjoyed teaching a course on Shelley, Byron, and Keats. In fact, she was teaching Shelley the last term...the term before...But, as the ugly realization dawned: not Percy, Mary; he felt volcanic. In disbelief, he stuttered, "So, it's the monster, is it?"   
  
She returned a concerned gaze, revealing only the seriousness of her purpose, and sat back in her chair, crossing her hands in her lap. "You tell me."   
  
He could contain himself no longer. "How can any of you understand what it's like? Everyday for twenty years: the fear, the loathing, the systematic stripping away of any quantum of self. And in the end, there's nothing left...but the mission."   
  
He was unable to stop the flow, "I work undercover, so add up the pollution of the following facts: I lie, cheat, steal, torture, maim and kill. And, would that it were only that, but now that my daughter is also a double agent," he felt his field of vision narrowing and his stomach heave, "in order to protect her, multiply all the above exponentially."   
  
Looking down at his shaking hands, "Do you know what the worst part is? There's no exit. No...way...out. I'm so far in the game that..." In a softer voice, with an errant hint of lilt, he said, "And if you thought there was no room for further perversion, enter the possibility that my...that Irina Derevko...may be very much alive...and that my daughter...who understands nothing of the woman's utter perfidy...wants to find her."   
  
Shakingly, he whispered, "So...yes...I guess...you could say...I'm...a...monster."   
  
He couldn't take it back, once the words were spoken. In his anger and his fear, he'd revealed the rawest kind of truth. He felt lightheaded and cold, as if he'd been shot. He looked at her with an expectant stare searching for any sign of what she might be thinking.   
  
She looked intently back at him, brow furrowed, hands twisted together. She allowed the moments to tick by as he regained his composure. When his breathing had reached normal, she asked, "At the risk of seeming precious, I'm betting there's nothing quite so profound in your journal."   
  
A strange calm was creeping over him, the moment after you've opened your veins, the blood running down your palm, a slight twitch. "No...and...probably needless to mention...nothing so dangerous either."   
  
"True, very true." Dr. Barnett rose from the chair and steadied herself against the desk, briefly. She walked to the bookshelf and pulled down a worn volume. She seemed to move with difficulty, as if an old injury was making itself known. Instead of returning to her desk, she sat down in the armchair next to Jack. "That tie, I know that tie."   
  
She leaned over closely and peered at the tiny gold shields. Oddly, for a man who lived life as if it were hand-to-hand combat, Jack felt no peril from her proximity.   
  
"Part of the illusion, Doctor, all part of the illusion." He said giving way to an ironic arc of his eyebrows.   
  
"My husband was a Harvard man AND a Company man. 'Veritas.' It's almost impossible to reconcile it all, isn't it?"   
  
"Few would even try."   
  
"An excellent point. And yet, I get the sense that there is a part of you, a still small part but nonetheless, a part, that really wants to heal, despite the terrible risks." She looked to him for a response. Jack stared hard at the fabric of her sleeve.   
  
"Why are you so willing to risk everything for the game but nothing for yourself?"   
  
He shrugged his shoulders and looked up briefly into her eyes. Her blue eyes were brimful and he knew then that they shared more than just an employer. He had wondered why there were no portraits of loved ones on her desk, no tribute to the usual connections, nothing that betrayed a private self. The tremor in her voice revealed to Jack that maybe the origins of Dr. Barnett's mission for truth and healing lay more in the dark heart of her own labyrinth then in modern science.   
  
"There are no easy answers to that question. I wish there were though you've mistaken the rationale. I don't risk everything for 'the game,' at least not for a very long time. I...risk...everything...for my daughter."   
  
She seemed to ponder the implications of this revelation. Then, she turned to the half-forgotten book in her hands, "I know you're a rationalist, Jack, but this might speak to the moment, it does for me. 'Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.' She closed the book. It was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.   
  
"That purpose, the purpose you honor every day, it does NOT preclude your own peace. In point of fact, the very existence of this higher purpose may depend on you finding a way through the fire to the other side. Will you at least consider the possibility?"   
  
Taking a deep breath, feeling exhausted but unusually calm, Jack said in a voice surer than he felt, "I'll weigh the possibility."   
  
"I want to be perfectly clear on this. I don't see you as a monster, though let's face it, you are capable of monstrous acts. In plain terms, I see you as someone who, for twenty long years, has coped everyday, every single damn day, to the best of his considerable abilities, in an impossible situation, for, dare I use the word, a noble cause." She pushed herself up from the chair. Her knees seemed to give. Jack watched for a moment as she seemed to sway backward. With catlike alertness, he stood quickly and steadied her. They were standing close, both faintly off-balance, but each regaining control. She seemed waiflike, next to Jack, but every inch a fighter. "Thank you. I knew this session might be a tough one but it seems to have taken a greater toll than I imagined."   
  
"You're not alone," he said with a grin in his eyes. "By the way, are you familiar with Nietzsche?"   
  
"No, not really." She replied as she reached her desk and picked up her datebook.   
  
"If...I...may also speak to the moment. 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.' You'd do well to remember this."   
  
Dr. Barnett took a deep breath and nodded. Jack saw that the words had found their mark. He thought, "The life of a psychiatrist must have its hazards; most certainly does as evidenced by the good doctor."   
  
Her voice restored to its carefully controlled pitch, she asked, "If you're willing, we'll continue when you're back on Thursday, at 1:30?"   
  
*******   
  
Part III, Always   
  
He left the office still in a state of shock, his emotions a disastrous cocktail of unfamiliar release and intense distress. Safely seated again in the Town Car, he realized his head was throbbing. He closed his eyes. In place of the usual array of colored lights, that intense reminder of his vertigo, was an enveloping darkness. Had this half hour been a tiny act of purification or was it just a further darkening of the fabric of irony in which he was bound? "Catharsis. Yet another tip of the hat to our ancient friends. Now, I wonder if Aristotle found catharsis a cure for vertigo?" Why, in the throes of such a significant experience, did these tangential ideas leap into his mind?   
  
Picking up the phone, he called his second, Seth, at SD-6.   
  
"Seth, it's me. I'm not going to be in for a while. I've got to go out of town. Listen, how's 0-14 team doing in Singapore?"   
  
"Jack, I'm sorry. Mr. Sloane asked me to let you know that he's reassigned the teams until you're back on active duty."   
  
Jack could hear the hesitation in Seth's voice. He knows this is a tricky situation and he's the one likely to take a blow from one side or the other if anything goes south. Damned arrogant Arvin: always relentless. What's it going to take to regain his trust this time? Well, at least he'll have his hands full for a time with the redoubtable Mr. Sark. Jack smiled at the prospect.   
  
"Not an issue. I'm sure they're in good hands. So, I'll be in touch."   
  
"Thanks, Jack. You know how it is." Trying too late to hide the audible relief in his voice.   
  
"I do indeed. Listen, if I hear anything that bears on Singapore, I'll be touch, regardless."   
  
Jack disconnected before Seth could answer. He didn't want to cause the young man further agitation. Seth was someone he would have liked to bring in to the CIA, the real CIA, one day. Indulging in an uncharacteristically optimistic moment, he thought, "Who knows, maybe with Sydney's help, we'll actually bring down SD-6 one day." The thought positively buoyed his mood. "Nowhere to go for the day. I think this experience may have triggered a dysfunctional coping mechanism." He pointed the Town Car in the direction of his favorite haunt, Pearl's, an establishment known in the trade for its fine value in top- flight liquor and for a high level of discretion. Pearl's was one of those "dusty little spots" spies found particularly amenable to their needs.   
  
*******   
  
The air was thick with smoke in the poorly ventilated private card room. They'd been emptying a bottle of Stoly and playing Texas Hold'em for an hour and a half. Jack needed to stretch. He got up from the table and started pacing around the room. He enjoyed playing cards with the proprietor, Pearl, even though it meant suffering her Balkan Sobranies.   
  
They had history, Jack and Pearl, and on the rare occasion when he could abide facing his, he sought out her company. She was sitting under the golden light of the crystal chandelier, as always, surrounded by a halo of cigarette smoke. A mass of graying unruly hair framed the heart-shaped face dominated by luminous cocoa brown eyes. He marveled that she somehow maintained a love of humanity despite a life in the game, spent peering into the murkiest places. She was a sophisticated contradiction of idealism and cynicism that, simply put, delighted him.   
  
She had been his first handler. During the long days and nights of the Prague Spring, she taught him to play cards as a distraction while waiting for contact with agents who might never return from their appointed rendezvous. Together, they listened to hundreds of hours of torch songs and musicals, Elvis and the blues. And they'd consumed barrels of vodka and slivovitz. She was a superb teacher but Jack was an even better student. His gifts made him quickly the superior player but he let Pearl win often enough to keep her happy, at cards and other amusements.   
  
"It's why you blended in so well. You were as ignorant as they were about popular culture. Actually Masha thought you were a spy from the beginning but because you had such a lousy grasp of your own youth culture, she wasn't sure. She told me during her interrogation that she thought you were KGB. Imagine that!"   
  
Remembering the look on Will Tippen's face that morning, he blanched, "God, I was so green."   
  
"Well, of course, it was your first, everyone's green, until they're not." She continued, looking closely at her cards then throwing another five chips into the center of the table. "Same with Masha, she was rushed into the field, and she made a mistake. She thought she couldn't risk killing you if you were KGB. How could she have been so naive? If you'd been KGB, you would have known all the pop references. Well, she also told me that you frightened her. Something about liking a bit of violence..."   
  
He blushed and returned to the table to take up dealing again, "You know, I have always counted on your discretion about the delicate details of my youth."   
  
"Listen bubee, that's a two way street! Besides nothing got by me. I may not have chosen to address everything but that doesn't mean I didn't see."   
  
Since Pearl was one of the few people he had ever trusted, Jack relaxed in her company, at least, as much as he was capable of relaxing. From long practice, he read her with ease. He knew she was bluffing by the way she was betting. He turned over a pair of fours and a Queen of Diamonds on the flop, "Let's talk about something other than Prague."   
  
"And what is it you want to discuss? The Red Sox? Enough said about them."   
  
Jack frowned, he had once loved baseball, but like so much in his life, it signified a pleasure he no longer allowed himself. Jack was holding a five and a Queen, wedded in Hearts, so he upped the bet another 5 chips. Pearl matched the bet. He turned a five of Spades.   
  
"Did you hear about the Winton chair at MIT? Your old rival, Norton, was just appointed. Pompous git. Lots of fanfare, velvet gowns, ceremony in the rotunda, they served shrimp. You know, it could have been yours. Maybe, should have been yours...if those greedy bastards at Langley had only left you alone."   
  
Yet another topic he couldn't bear discussing. "Come on, Pearl, you're almost bursting at the seams. So, what have you heard?" He turned over the Queen of Spades on the river.   
  
"It's just been so long since I saw you. I have to think what you might not know. Ahh, I have one...though it's a ghost story." she said as she pushed all in.   
  
Caught off-guard, Jack wondered, "This is Pearl, she might have heard almost anything or she might just be playing with me to win the hand." He asked, "Just so I know, is this something you saw on what is that show? "Unsolved Mysteries? Oh, and I call."   
  
Beckoning him to show his cards, she said with mock horror, "What? You don't watch?"   
  
He tossed his full boat onto the table, Queens over fives. "Such a comedian." Pearl said as she disgustedly threw over a pair of twos. She had been bluffing.   
  
"Don't leave just yet, hmm? Another game, Templar? This one will be more interesting." Hearing that nickname brought a rush of feelings. While not a man given to sentiment, Jack was genuinely fond of Pearl, and tolerated her whims as she tolerated his glower moodiness.   
  
Keeping his expression neutral, he asked, "What could be the possible payoff?"   
  
"Me, I love games and you are perhaps the best I've ever played. Besides, you were born to play games. You can't NOT play games. One more, please?"   
  
"I'm not really playing well. I've had one hell of a day and I'm certainly in no mood for intel about ghosts." He picked up the cards and began shuffling them with an expert's economy of movement. "But, for you, one more hand of poker." he said with a passable Yiddish accent.   
  
She smiled with her whole face. "A sheynam dank for humoring an old woman." Following their long tradition, she reached across the table, and reclaimed half the pot. "Now about this ghost story..."   
  
Jack stopped shuffling and looked up to evaluate Pearl's expression. "She's only wanted to talk about the past tonight. What could she possibly be after? It must be something that concerns me. Ghosts...my life is full of ghosts, except for Sydney." Beginning to deal another hand, a most distressing thought occurred, "She can't have heard about..." Damping down his rising concern, he played along, "Ghosts. Spooks. A dead spy? That's one possibility."   
  
"Not bad but not enough. This is as much a mystery about identity as it is a ghost story."   
  
Jack felt his throat tighten as he realized what it was she might have heard. "So, it's grist for the rumor mill then, is it? I really should spend more time with you, because I just learned this damn intel quite recently. And yes, from what we've been able to confirm, it's all but official. I WAS a complete fool."   
  
"Always so hard on yourself." Taking in Jack's carefully composed face, "You have something to confess? Out with it, they tell me confession is good for...something."   
  
"The soul, that's what they say." He watched as she peeked at the cards, turning up the edges and shadowing them with her hand. He looked at his own hand, a pair of sixes, Clubs and Hearts. "I thought you were the one with the intel." He smirked. They rarely discussed Irina Derevko unless Jack made the first move. "So, you want to hear my confession?"   
  
"Can an old Jewish woman hear confession? You have to ask?" she said as she smiled and bet ten chips.   
  
While annoyed, he couldn't help but laugh at the thought of what the Brothers who raised him might think of this sacrilege. Remembering the confrontation earlier in the day, and the precious moment of grace it allowed, he said, "Confession, is that what today's been leading to?"   
  
"Go on, my son, I'm listening." She prompted as she took a gulp from her glass and raised it in mock ceremony to the ceiling.   
  
"Right, well not sure how I let you talk me into this, but, we'll skip over the first part." He paused, "Let's see, it's been," he threw his head back and looked up to the chandelier, "ohhh, can it really be 2 decades since my last confession?"   
  
"Well, I'm sure that's some kind of sin but let's not start off with the ruler." she said raising the bet. Jack turned over the flop; King of Diamonds, King of Hearts, five of Diamonds.   
  
Feeling momentary giddyness, he cried out, "Please no rulers! Besides it was a strap at St. Benoit, Quebec, where I learned that 'obedience is a loving answer to God.' Though, I did try to believe."   
  
"Oh you believed, I remember. There was a time when you believed in many things, Jack," she said regretfully. "And I'm raising the bet, this hand is looking good."   
  
"Like that pair of twos?" They shared a smile.   
  
"Tell me what's on your mind, Templar. It won't go further than these ears. You have my word."   
  
Jack had spent the last twenty years compartmentalizing reality. But now, in less than a week, there'd been a landslide of revelations to face. It culminated in the tape from the debriefing, the inescapable fact of her survival, and the unmistakable contempt in her voice. Jack could hate her, did hate her, but he couldn't escape the truth in what she said. The bile rose in his throat, as he began, "You know that Laura, whom I adored, used me to secure intel on Project Christmas...That was bad...very bad."   
  
He turned over the six of Diamonds. "She played my wife for ten years and mother to our daughter for six, that is when she wasn't busy assassinating our colleagues and handing top secret material to the KGB."   
  
Her face looked drawn, Pearl bet again, pushing twenty chips into the pile. She didn't meet Jack's eyes when he raised another twenty.   
  
"While we're on the topic of giving, did you know that St. Benedict admonished us to 'give obedience with a good will, because God loveth a cheerful giver?' No I suspected you might not. But you are aware that, when L...Irina Derevko...finished her mission, or was close to being exposed (these facts are still not clear to me) she died escaping the FBI in a car accident?"   
  
Putting her cards down on the table, in a soft voice, as one might speak to a child or a madman, Pearl suggested, "Do you think maybe we should call for some coffee, just take a little break, tati?"   
  
His eyes narrowed as he slammed a hand down on the table top. Chips flew in the air, cascading down from their neat stacks into a heap. "Hell no. You wanted to play and we're going to play it out. Besides, since when have you been afraid to risk it all it if it means winning the game?" He turned over the last card, the river, a three of Diamonds.   
  
Pearl had seen Jack through many nights fueled by a caustic combination of alcohol and anger. It was hard to pull him out of a spin. She cajoled him, "You know, I'm feeling tired. How about we call out for dinner? It's been a long time since we shared a meal."   
  
He seemed not to have heard her. "Well, I've recently learned that's a lie, another deception to add to the long, long list. It appears that she survived the accident... Not only that, but the Agency, the one we've served so faithfully all these decades, knew this...fact...but because of...my condition...they decided that I wasn't to know." His head pounded from the vodka and the smoke and the mind-numbing rollercoaster ride of the day. He threw over his pair of sixes, another full house.   
  
In a wavering voice, he concluded, "So, the final twist...and I hesitate to use the word final...I now learn that she was Alexander Khasinau's protogee, can you believe it?" he said abjectly, "Khasinau, a crueller specimen one would be hard pressed to find." He spit out as if it were poison, "And you know what that means...his 'protogee.'"   
  
All sense of mischief had drained from her face. "Don't, Jack, enough. I'm so sorry. I heard a rumor...about a man who might have been her father. A connection perhaps to follow for Sydney. About this, I had NO idea."   
  
From long experience reading her, Jack knew she was telling the truth. For the second time that day, a sense of clarity replaced the aching emptiness. "The part that's...unforgiveable...for all I know...anyone knows...she could be watching Sydney right now."   
  
Pearl, that most expressive of women, rarely touched the unspoken boundaries with Jack. She seemed always to have recognized the depth of his pain and she rarely, even in jest, breached the wall. But, in the face of his apparent despair, she reached out and tentatively put a hand on his sleeve. "And the maideleh?"   
  
He looked long into his empty glass. "It's about as bad as is it can be. She wants to find her."   
  
"Hmmm. That's got to be a huge mistake." Pearl poured the rest of the bottle into their glasses.   
  
"Finally something we agree on." They sat looking at the chips in the pot. Jack nodded to Pearl to show her cards. She turned over four and seven of Diamonds.   
  
"Straight flush." He managed a tiny smile. "Damn. You beat me." He toasted her with a deep draught of the cold clear liquid. He summoned courage enough to ask, "I've always avoided this question, well most questions about her, but since I'm baring what there is of my soul, will you at least tell me why you hated her?"   
  
Pearl shifted in her chair. "I didn't hate her then. What was to hate? She was charming and brilliant, a perfect mate for you. No, I didn't hate, I just didn't believe she was genuine."   
  
She paused, "And I wasn't the only one. What was her name, smart girl...from Radcliffe...the Pilgrim...you can't have forgotten her?"   
  
"You were right, of course. But then, you're always right...even when you're not." The corners of his lips turned up but there was no mirth as he said, "Happy?" He paused, "And, yes, Patience...distrusted Laura...though her...motives...might have jaded her judgment."   
  
Lighting another cigarette and blowing a plume of pungent smoke onto the table, Pearl asked, "And what, you ask, in this tragedy, could make me happy? Only this, that my instincts and training told me she was wrong."   
  
Her face lightened, "Jack, I know it's because of your upbringing, I mean, how the hell could monks prepare a boy like you for the life you chose?" Smiling, "Do you even remember how unworldly you were? When you came to the door of my office, what were you 17, 18? I thought you were from another time. No joking. You seemed so sweet and eager, nothing like your cynical, ambitious peers. And it didn't hurt that you were handsome, not in a flashy way, but impressive, like Michelangelo's David, not pretty but powerful. The drop-dead brilliance didn't hurt, either, by the way. I couldn't let you go and neither could they."   
  
Jack was again close to tears, "But what did you see in Laura?"   
  
The poignancy of his question brought Pearl out of her revelry, "Where was I, oh, right, how I knew she was wrong. Well, it wasn't so much what I saw in Laura, no, she was perfectly manufactured for the illusion. Believe me, I checked her out with every source I could find. No, it was what I saw in you. You were always apart even when you were among others. It's not that you didn't want to be a part of the group, it's rather that you couldn't allow anyone close enough to risk caring. Given perspective and maturity, it was actually a great strength, that detachment, but then again, combined with your pride," she grimaced, "it was also your greatest weakness."   
  
Taking another drag from the Sobranie, flush with memories, age seemed to recede from her brow, "It was 1971, a year into your 'plum' assignment, that loathsome project to rob children of their innocence, feh," making a spitting noise. "Won, I might add, for your great service to Tom McAllen, cold-hearted bastard extraordinaire; the assignment you chose despite all my humble efforts to convince you to return to academia."   
  
Interrupting her flow, Jack responded angrily, "However 'loathsome' you may have found the idea, it was an innovation that held enormous promise. The children were never harmed in any way. Their native abilities were tested, recognized, and reinforced. The conditioning was purely at the skill level, not 'brainwashing' as you called it. Project Christmas was laying the groundwork for the new generation of recruits."   
  
"But, they were children...not recruits. And, God forbid, all that damnable project did was create an 'enhanced recruit' gap between us and the Russians. It was madness. Talk about opening Pandora's box."   
  
"Least you forget, Pearl, it was war."   
  
"And what has been the harvest from that tainted field?" Taking a long, slow sip of her drink, "Where was I? Um, yes, so Laura appears. Seeking you, seducing you, subtly, but focused always on you. With her beauty, her serenity, her seriousness, the whole perfect package. And all the poetry, the Shelley, Byron, Keats, it was enough to make you seasick. That is, unless, as I reasoned, the performance was engineered for maximum emotional leverage."   
  
Seeing the ash burn to the end, she stubbed out the cigarette and took another. Jack didn't miss a beat, reaching for the lighter and connecting the flame with the cigarette as Pearl lifted it to her lips. She smiled, appreciating an action they'd played out countless times in their history. "At any rate, you were lost, bubeleh, completely, deepest-desire level lost. It was nothing so much as a freefall, I bet it felt that way too. And it was that combination of coincidences that made me suspicious."   
  
Pearl rose from her chair and stood over him. With a touch of haughtiness, "How could it happen that one who spends his every waking moment weighing the veracity of all he hears be utterly deceived? Do you still fail to grasp that human beings rarely are as good or as bad as we want them to be but that our thinking, our wishing, makes it so? You were vulnerable to her, she gave you what you most desired. For more than 10 years, Jack, you heard only her voice. The rest was irrelevant."   
  
She took a long drink and sat down again. "And if I may digress to matters of tradecraft, well the truly remarkable part of this operation, and I speak as someone who has given it much thought in the last twenty years, is that once envisioned and the proper agent in place, complete success was a foregone conclusion."   
  
Jack felt flushed, under attack, turning to his native sarcasm, "They should give awards for that quality of insight, Pearl. Something grand, say...a Nobel Prize? But, wait, that's right, in the end...your genius for people...all the years of observation and profiling, it didn't make one damn difference in how the worse breach in intel you or I ever came in contact with was discovered or defused. And, anyway, at least I have a pretty solid grasp of my shortcomings these days."   
  
Pearl seemed to snap out of her drunkenness as she quickly rejoined, "I'm not talking about intentional deceit, like your treacherous wife, may she burn in hell for what she did to you and the child. But, least you forget, Mr. Bristow, that...was...war. No, I'm talking about how we deceive ourselves unwittingly. Because if there is cause for guilt bubee, that's where you'll find it." She added contemptuously, "So, you really came here tonight for what, cards? conversation? Maybe even a little taste of absolution?"   
  
He could feel the rage rising in his craw, his fists gripped tightly, his breathing consciously slowed. He knew he could reach across the table, and in one second, take her neck in both hands and with one twist, be rid of her disturbing insinuations. Realizing with horror the unwarranted violence of his thoughts, Jack forced himself to relent. "This woman is not the enemy." He softened, ashamed of his impulse, which, as much as he wished it weren't so, only served to confirm Dr. Barnett's advice.   
  
He looked at Pearl and saw her as she had been then, and, in a sense, ever would be to him. She was so like a pixie, diminutive, with dark curly hair, worn long like a mane, her nose upturned, her ears slightly pointed. As a 16-year-old orphan of the Holocaust, by some miracle of chance and doggedness, she survived the second World War. She bore the mark of every whip that fell on her and yet, she rose above it, coming to the US on a scholarship to Brandeis, seeking meaning as much as learning. She turned down a tenure track position as a newly minted Ph.D., to be recruited into the Company in 1949. In no small part because she spoke five Soviet block languages fluently, she was needed in Europe. When duty called, she reluctantly returned to Germany to help rebuild a world in which she was born but of which she would never again feel a part.   
  
As incredible as it seemed, he'd known her two-thirds of his life. When Pearl took Jack on as a probationer in 1968 she was already a legend to the young recruits lucky enough to pass her tests. A successful probation with Pearl would more than make a career, it would forge a lifelong bond. She was one of the real heroes in his life. She had known Jack as few others ever would, and he owed this woman more than he could ever repay.   
  
Letting open the door to caring just a crack, his face transformed with a smile and he settled on her one of his rare winks, pointing to all the chips in the pot. "Actually, I came to beat you at poker and I seem to have fared rather well in that effort, all things considered." He rose to leave, draining his glass.   
  
As he turned to the door, she too rose from the table. In her slightly stilted old-world way, she said, "I never tire of your company, you know that. It's too rare you come to see me. But, tonight, after all we've said, it occurs that it is I who must ask your forgiveness. It's long overdue, my saying this to you, but for the record Jack, in my book, you settled what you owed a long time ago."   
  
He twisted the door knob, steadying his hand.   
  
"Look at me please, son."   
  
He turned slowly and raised his brimming eyes to meet hers. He beheld his trusted mentor, whose countenance bristled with determination.   
  
Daring once more to lay a hand on his sleeve, "I want you to consider two things. First, it's been twenty years, the enemy you face now will not be the one you faced then. Be resourceful, Jack. Such a master of deception is Irina Derevko."  
  
Pausing for the idea to settle in the air between them. "And last, while a few facts seem solid, in this...confrontation, there are more questions than answers. Much we don't yet see may be in play. Be vigilant, Jack. No one is innocent except the child."  
  
THE END 


End file.
